The Bruins: Game Three
As I watched last night’s game, I idly wondered whether any Stanley Cup Champion has been blown out in a Final like the Canucks were blown out last night. Or whether any Stanley Cup Champion had ever been blown out – and I mean blown out – three times on the way to the prize.
I don’t think I want to know.
I didn’t actually feel too bad about the game even when the score was 2-0. The Marchand goal was the backbreaker, after which the Canucks stopped skating and the roof fell in. It was too bad, because until that point we had one of the best games of the playoffs. I hope the Canucks learn the lesson – if they stop skating, the Bruins will pound on them.
If Hamhuis is still out on Wednesday, I expect to see both Ballard and Tanev dress. (Glass will also probably replace Tambellini.) Alberts is coming out for sure and Rome will almost certainly be suspended for his hit on Nathan Horton even though I don’t think they would have even called a penalty on the play if the Boston player had not been badly hurt.
It was a very late hit but it isn’t hard to make the case that Rome wasn’t the one to initiate contact. All he really did was hold his ground, stop and brace himself. Horton accelerated into him and provided almost all the force in the collision. Horton cannot skate from the centre line to the Canuck blueline without once looking to his right. Had he done so, he would cut to the inside and blow past a flatfooted Rome.
Anyway, here’s hoping Nathan recovers quickly.
The Canucks, too.
The answer to your first question is…
Not very many. 3 out of 19
Even though it’s just one game, I’m starting to get worried that injuries are finally starting to take their toll. I have to admit I’ve just had this feeling of dread that the worst will happen at any time. I keep getting surprised of course, but with the injuries I’m starting to worry.
I suppose I shouldn’t forget the fact that the Bruins just lost one of their best offensive players themselves, but still…it just feels like the wheels fell off at the Daytona 500 and we’re sliding to a stop, about 6 inches short of the finish line.
I also thought the game was pretty good until the Marchand goal (which Luongo played terribly). It seemed like the whole Canucks D was just out of sync after that. It was as if three times inexcusable blunders made it feel like the Gods were against them, and they looked deflated.
Speaking of being out of sync, I felt even in Game 2 that Canucks were missing Hamhuis. Bieksa is far less effective without the steadying presence of Hamhuis. Ehrhoff had several goof-ups, and Edler didn’t look steady. It seems like the way Vancouver plays, if the D have a collectively bad off-night pinching, then the scoring chances against just go way up. But honestly, if Thomas doesn’t play off his head, it could have easily finished 5-3 or even gone the other way. With the Bruins playing well, they gave up tons of quality scoring chances.
The hit on Horton was terrible. I don’t think Rome meant to injure him, but it’s terrible to see a player fall like that.
It seems like the way Vancouver plays, if the D have a collectively bad off-night pinching, then the scoring chances against just go way up.
For sure. The Canucks play a high risk game and if they don’t play it well, the shit hits the fan. Then they get down by a few goals so they risk even more. Splatter, splatter, splatter.
Tom, Rome actually moved across the ice (East-West) a bit before stopping himself right in front of Horton. I am just glad that he is suspended because he is the worst defenseman on the roster and he took spots away from more deserving players, namely, Ballard and Tanev.
I guess I haven’t been paying enough attention in the past, because this Rome-Horton hit is like my Waterloo when it comes to finally seeing the injustice of penalizing-the-outcome-instead-of-the-action. That was clearly a shoulder-to-shoulder hit where all the damage accrued from Horton’s failure to keep his head up and a loosely-secured helmet that may not have helped him as much when his head hit the ice.
These players need a 7th-grade level powerpoint summary of Haché & Ferguson’s The Physics of Hockey.
Let’s call a spade a spade. It was a shoulder-to-head hit.
Tom, Rome actually moved across the ice (East-West) a bit before stopping himself right in front of Horton.
It was a very weird play. Almost invariably on a late hit, the hittee is stopped and the hitter ploughs him long after the puck is gone. The lateness of this hit is nearly irrelevant. Obviously if Horton held the puck another half second, the check is legal. But what if Horton had never had the puck?
Rome did exactly as you say, Kel. Why isn’t he allowed to do that? He got to the spot first. Which player is guilty of interference? He braced himself and exploded up into Horton, but its still the first time I’ve seen a suspension when the player suspended was stationary when the hit was made. He did stop right in front of him, but there is no collision as long as Horton has taken a look so he knows Rome is there.
Rome messed up the play really badly by picking a terrible time to try to hold the blueline, and the result should have been that Horton blows past him. (Or he tries to and Rome hauls him down as he went past.) When Rome did find himself in no man’s land, what should he do? Jump out of the way? Turn and chase? He should stop to force Horton to slow and go around him, shouldn’t he?
I don’t mean to come across as defending either Rome or the hit. Like you, Kel, I don’t care whether he is suspended and Rome didn’t have to explode up into him. I also freely admit I don’t understand what is now a penalty or a suspendable offense except that a suspension always follows a stretcher these days.
But this is a hit that has no frame of reference for me. Rome stopped and Horton ploughed into him. I can’t compare it to any of the notorious hits we’ve seen over the past few years. It wasn’t that Horton did not see Rome coming, because Rome wasn’t coming. It was that Horton did not look where he was going and he ran – literally – into a piece of occupied ice. If a Bruin was straddling the blue line, Horton is still getting crunched.
Watching more of the replay, I think Rome did more than simply stopped. As you said, he exploded into Horton by almost jumping into the Bruin. At the point of impact, one of his skates were already off the ice and his body was heading upward the whole time during the collision. So, I wouldn’t argue that Horton initiated contact or it is incidental. When Horton released the puck, Rome was not directly in front of him and moved laterally. I think the league explained in one of the post-lockout videos that it is interference if a player moves laterally, not in the direction of the puck, and collides with an opponent that doesn’t have the puck. Anyway, I’ve written enough about this incident.
You really think all Rome did was stop and brace?
It was a classic late hit. From Peca on Selanne back in the day to Getzlaf on Hamhuis this season to Downie on Boychuck in these playoffs to now Rome on Horton, there are all kinds of possible (deplorable) late hits: along the boards, open ice, one beat after a pass is made, three beats after a pass is made, the hittee is standing still, the hittee is moving away from the hitter, the hittee is moving into the hittee. I don’t think any of those specifics matter much. When a player is reasonably unsuspecting, likely because he got rid of the puck more than a beat ago, and an opposing player initiates contact, the hittee is potentially going to get injured. There’s a culture of late hitting in the North American game, particularly Canadian game, that does not exist in Europe. The NHL has the power to wean that particular culture out of the game. Thus far they have not. Maybe they will if people keep ending up on stretchers.
You really think all Rome did was stop and brace?
No, as I said, Rome exploded up into Horton. Suppose that instead of doing that, Rome just relaxes and Horton runs over him. What’s the call?
When a player is reasonably unsuspecting, likely because he got rid of the puck more than a beat ago, and an opposing player initiates contact, the hittee is potentially going to get injured.
What about when a player is unsuspecting because he forgets to watch where he is going? I stil can’t believe Horton on the play. I know this is taken as blaming the victim, but jeez. Never mind the fact he could hurt himself (or somebody else) its a stupid way to play hockey. He’s got to look to figure out how the rush is going to unfold.
There’s a culture of late hitting in the North American game, particularly Canadian game, that does not exist in Europe. The NHL has the power to wean that particular culture out of the game. Thus far they have not. Maybe they will if people keep ending up on stretchers.
I absolutely agree. In fact that would be the top of my list for reducing concussions. The problem is this is one thing the NHL is not prepared to do. Give players a short beat to finish a check. No more. The result would be to reduce hitting from 50,000 a year to 35,000 a year. Heaven forbid.
The league is trying to go from 50,000 to 49,900, getting rid of the 100 hits everybody hates. (Which means the 100 hits involving stretchers or superstars and really ugly injuries.) It will never work. There is some satisfaction for the fans to nail Rome, but it won’t change anything. Everybody knows that if Horton gets up, there is no suspension. Or if it had been half a second (rather than a second) the hit is legal.
No matter how hard you hammer the 100 hitters, nothing will change until you make the hit always illegal.
I suppose one consolation is that this really felt like Game 5 of the Nashville series, doesn’t it? One of those games where absolutely nothing goes right, the defence sucks and then go 7-2 the next 9 games.
I still have to trust the math…since really, that’s what hockey really is…probabilities that are realized or not.
And the fact is that Boston still has to win 3 out of 4 games vs. the Canucks. The order of victories don’t matter.
Any takers even now that can happen?
Oh yeah…I find Rome’s hit ironic given Chara’s hit on Pacioretty.
I mean, Chara was suspended for like 10+ games wasn’t he?
Or wait.
That’s right.
0 games.
Chara was there when the puck was there, and then he finished his check when the puck left. Rome was nowhere near Horton when the puck left. I don’t see how these plays are even comparable.
They were both interference plays with the same on-ice penalty assessed. Both hits occurred roughly 1 second after the puck was released. Both were north/south plays and would have been legal had they not been late. Both defenseman would have been caught out of position had they not “finished” their check. Both plays resulted in severe injuries (Horton – concussion; Pacioretty – concussion + broken neck).
Explain how they are not comparable?
When the puck left Pacioretty’s stick, Chara was 2-5 feet away from Pacioretty’s body. Contact was made a fraction of a second later. Pacioretty took at most half a a stride before Chara made contact. Actually, when Pacioretty makes contact with the puck, Chara is actually closer to the puck than Pacioretty(!). When Horton let go of the puck, Rome was in a different zip code. He was literally in a different area of the ice. Contact was made a full second after the puck was gone. Horton took at least two full strides before contact was made. Frankly, these hits are not even remotely comparable.
There have been a ton of similarly late hits in the NHL over the years, and they are all unnecessarily dangerous and they need to be removed from the game. The Kesler hit on Hamhuis is one that Tom has talked about at length. The Downie hit on Boychuck was similarly disgusting. We may as well let players play Russian Roulette on the ice in between periods a few times per year.
Put differently, if you get to the puck at the same time or at roughly the same time as an opposing player, there’s a reasonable expectation you’ll get hit and you are not an unsuspecting player. But if you get rid of the puck and there’s no opposing player within a reasonable distance from you, there’s no reasonable expectation that you’ll be hit a full second later, and you are therefore unsuspecting.
Re Pacioretty. Its a 50/50 puck at the blue line but once the puck is knocked past Chara (which occurs about a foot inside the defensive zone), Pacioretty takes 3 strides (covering roughly 3/4 of the distance between the blue line and the red line) and the puck is at least 20 feet down the ice before Chara fully commits to rubbing him out into the boards (and subsequently the stanchion). As the on-ice officials ruled, and the league confirmed, this was a clear interference play.
Re Horton. Horton releases the puck about a third of the way between the centre red line (at the edge of the Bruins logo) and the blue line and is hit just before he reaches the blue line. Mike Murphy confirmed that this was an interference infraction and that the hit was otherwise clean.
The distances covered b/n the puck release and the hits are almost exactly the same. The difference is that Chara was skating in the same direction and in close proximity to Pacioretty, while Horton and Rome were closing in on each other. The direction of travel is irrelevant to the legality of the play. I can’t be bothered to break it down frame-by-frame, but since the Rome hit occurred within a slightly smaller space and Horton was moving at a high rate of speed, I would be very surprised if the Rome play occurred within a longer time-frame than the Chara hit, as you suggest.
Regardless, both were clearly illegal interference plays with similar outcomes (although at the time of the league review the Pacioretty injury seemed more severe).
One play occurred during the regular season and did not warrant additional discipline. The other play occurred during the Stanley Cup Finals and resulted in the longest suspension in Cup history. It DOES seem like they’re making things up as they go along…
Vancouver looks like they miss Hamhuis.
And they miss Ballard and Tanev too. Inexplicable decision to play Alberts and Rome ahead of those two.